A Treetop Encounter
by heatqueen
Summary: A.K.A. How Elphaba First Learned About Animals. An attempt to emulate the writing style of Gregory Maguire.


**A/N: To anyone reading 'Impenetrable' - I am SO SORRY for not updating! The reason is because I was on holiday and forgot to bring my memory stick with me. But as I am back home now, I promise I will get back to writing it and should be able to update soon. Sorry about that! I will now go and bang my head against a wall for being such an idiot.**

 **A/N 2: This fic was an attempt to emulate the style of Gregory Maguire. Because I am reading him again like the idiot that I am. He's really hard to read, I'm not sure why I bother. There's something about the way he writes and I want in on it. If only. Anyway I hope I have mildly succeeded and would appreciate any feedback that you have. Thanks!**

 _~ A Treetop Encounter ~_

 _~ A 'Wicked' One-Shot ~_

 _~ By Heatqueen ~_

In the isolation of the forest, an experiment. Take the brown, earthy mud and lather it upon my skin. See if I can block out the horrid green-ness. See if I can pass as unextraordinary.

Once I was disguised I clambered into the tree branches and scowled at my surroundings. Perched in the forks of the trees, beneath the shade of the leaves, the birds paid me no mind. They were unintelligent. They didn't distinguish the green of my skin from the green of the grass. Or the green of the mossy rocks. Or the green of the tree leaves, or the Emerald City. The Emerald City, I thought, was renowned for its beauty. We matched in colour, and yet the EC was beautiful while I was ugly. It was as Heavenly as I was a sinner. And so the prejudices of the world remained.

And so the prejudices of the world continued.

Three branches high, my gaze rested on the line between the treetops and cloudless sky. Bright rays of sun stinging my eyes. A canvas of tree leaves yellow with thirst. No animals dared venture into such an exposed climate at this time of year. Lurlinemas, the birds would take to the clouds and disappear into the fog, but for now I was the sole being in existence for miles on end.

In the midst of my daydream I was disturbed by a single blackbird whizzing by. It landed a metre from the spot where my head popped out of the treetops.

'You're awfully green,' it said – and that it _said_ something almost sent me tumbling. Clumsily rebalancing myself, I stared at the creature.

'You're…awfully talkative. For a bird.'

'A bird,' it scoffed. 'Ignorant girl, I am not a bird, but a _Bird.'_

Well there wasn't much difference to be heard, except that the bird over-estimated its self-importance. Uneducated as I was then, I scoffed in turn. Never mind that it could talk, I never backed down in a confrontation.

'Ignorant,' I declared, 'is the one who assumes they know about someone they've only just met.'

'And yet you have so easily assumed that I am beneath you,' the bird countered. _'Ignorant,'_ he emphasised, 'is when the Ozians lumber us Animals in with the dumb creatures so they can strip us of our rights.'

'Rights? You are a blackbird!'

'I am as intelligent as any human.'

'But you are not human.'

'No. But consider this, young Miss – why should I be treated any differently for the fact that I am a Bird and not a human, when inside we are the same?'

I opened my mouth, ready to present a quick retort, but none came. The bird – _Bird,_ he called himself – gave me a 'knowing' sort of look. Before I could find my tongue, he took off out of sight and left me to my thoughts.

When Father and Nanny found me, I was dangling from a branch upside down, the roughness of the bark scratching the behinds of my knees, an earthy mess of a child. They dragged me, screaming and protesting, back to the carriage where Nessarose shaded her lily-white complexion from the sun. Next to me, she was the clean child. The pure one. The Unnamed God's gift, granted to balance the fate befallen to my family by my arrival. Twisted legs that bound her to a wheelchair: perhaps they were a compromise for her divine beauty. Or perhaps brought by my sinful presence.

Nessarose was scornful. 'You're a sight,' she declared, nose in the air, as though I wasn't a sight anyway. I grinned and picked at the mud that had hardened on my skin. It fell off in flakes and dirtied the carriage floor.

At Colwen Grounds, after tellings off, a good scrubbing. Get that dirt off your body. Let the world see your sin. In the manner of the mud sloshing down the sink, I felt my fantasy of ordinariness slip away.


End file.
